Warren Allen Smith

A compilation of freethinkers in the entertainment industry, excerpted from the author's massive work, Who's Who in Hell. There are some truly interesting people in here, and the book is easy to read (much easier than the longer work), but it suffers from an imbalance in treatments. Some people get very short excerpts, while others are longer, and this is understandable, as there is simply more information to share for some individuals. But the choices of who to give long write ups to and show more who to just give a short blurb to at times seems to be random and scattershot. There were very long quotes from some individuals that would have been better left out; while I don't think non-believers should try to pretend there are no vile people in our midst, it is a mistake to give an extended voice to the nastiest among us, and there were a couple of places where this was the case (and I have now discovered some freethinkers that I think are much more juvenile and even more libertarian than Penn Jillette). Overall, the best entries were those from the early 20th century, but that's perhaps because so much of pop culture in the last few decades is a total cipher to me. For those who know some of these 1990s TV stars, those entries might be much more interesting. show less